Are goalies overglorified in Montreal?

Since I feel bad that every single poster (and moderator) misunderstood Palindrom's point in his "Carbonneau: ''Without Budaj, we lose 8-2 tonight'' (Mon-Buf) thread", I'm going to reformulate on his behalf.

Do you think that we tend to overglorify goalies in Montreal?

I do think, in general, that goalies get a little too much credit in Montreal. If Montreal wins, it's because of the goalie. And if they lose, it's usually because the team sucks despite the goalie. This is how it's always been here. Goalies are semi-deities here.

Now has Montreal had very good goalies over the years? Of course, we've been pretty fortunate at the goalie position. But I still feel as though there's always been a tendency here to discredit the team a little too much by attributing the lion's share of success to the goaltenders.

Montreal is sorta like the anti-Philly. In Philly, the goalie is usually unfairly vilified no matter what. When they win, it's because the team is good enough despite the goalie. When they lose, it's the goalie's fault. Sure, they haven't had the best goalies, but stories of how horrendous it's been are very exaggerated.

The fact of the matter is that the league has plenty of good goalies. Good goaltending should be more of a base expectation for at least half the teams now, as opposed to something out of the ordinary to be thankful for.

I don't think goalies get the same respect in any other city than they do in Montreal.

Where else would Tretiak get those standing ovations?

When your team had Vezina, Plante, Dryden and Roy as goaltenders it`s natural that you respect the position more than fans of other teams. Sadly it also means that the goalies will be compared to those Hall of Famers and found lacking.

Overglorified? If Halak has a good post season like he had with the Habs shrines may be erected and heads will roll for trading the wrong goalie in Habland. Then Price will win us the cup next year and all will be forgotten.

The fact of the matter is that the league has plenty of good goalies. Good goaltending should be more of a base expectation for at least half the teams now, as opposed to something out of the ordinary to be thankful for.

Yeah.. because he wasn't good. He wasn't disciplined. He wasn't mature. And he previously had pulled this whole defiant act by imitating Roy and wearing a Washington cap trying to be obnoxious while also thinking he was much better than he was. That tends to rub people the wrong way when the player isn't performing and acting like a ******.

Yes, and at the same time, we overstate the badness of goalies when they flounder.

Certainly, when goaltenders get credit they tend to get too much. Yes, goalies make fantastic saves, but I think it's often not recognized that NHL goalies are in the NHL specifically because they can make fantastic saves. They are supposed to bail out their defense a significant percentage of the time. Obviously, better goalies do so more regularly, but even an average NHL starter will have great saves and have hot stretches. Ironically, at the same time, we refuse to believe a goalie in a particularly hot/lucky stretch can save an awful club (this happens to pretty all bad clubs at some point but it's especially striking when it happens to fall in the playoffs).

At the same time, goalie performance tends to be measured by reputation more than actual results, and the fanbase tends not to be aware of the extreme volatility of goaltending performance, and the boundaries thereof. Carey Price's .905 season was viewed as a disaster season at the same time as MA Fleury was seen as an elite goalie... with a career average of .905 (at the time). We've not had genuinely awful goaltending in Montreal in a long, long time.

We're slowly realizing that judging goaltenders on the basis of a godawful criteria like goalie wins is pointless, but that gives us precious little to work with -- save percentage works to an extent, but it's extremely variable and luck-driven even beyond factoring in an hypothetical "defense" factor. It is very, very hard to judge goalies objectively -- so most goalie evaluations are reputation plays, generally predicated on team strength.

Average goaltending is common, not that hard to find, cheap, and it should be enough for most teams. The problem is that even elite goaltending is highly volatile, leading to great difficulty in finding it -- and even elite goaltending does not guarantee stable performance. I suspect work directed at a metric such as "scoring chances saved" would really help a lot.

Since I feel bad that every single poster (and moderator) misunderstood Palindrom's point in his "Carbonneau: ''Without Budaj, we lose 8-2 tonight'' (Mon-Buf) thread", I'm going to reformulate on his behalf.

Do you think that we tend to overglorify goalies in Montreal?

I do think, in general, that goalies get a little too much credit in Montreal. If Montreal wins, it's because of the goalie. And if they lose, it's usually because the team sucks despite the goalie. This is how it's always been here. Goalies are semi-deities here.

Now has Montreal had very good goalies over the years? Of course, we've been pretty fortunate at the goalie position. But I still feel as though there's always been a tendency here to discredit the team a little too much by attributing the lion's share of success to the goaltenders.

Montreal is sorta like the anti-Philly. In Philly, the goalie is usually unfairly vilified no matter what. When they win, it's because the team is good enough despite the goalie. When they lose, it's the goalie's fault. Sure, they haven't had the best goalies, but stories of how horrendous it's been are very exaggerated.

The fact of the matter is that the league has plenty of good goalies. Good goaltending should be more of a base expectation for at least half the teams now, as opposed to something out of the ordinary to be thankful for.

Bring the Habs another Lafleur or Béliveau and the goalie will become #2...

but the last two Cups + the most Confrence Finals were stolen by their goalies.

I actually think people here underrate goaltending. Montreal has had amazingly consistent success between the pipes compared to just about every organization in the NHL that hasn't had a single starter in recent history.

People think every goalie stops every puck he sees, he never loses sight of the puck around him, deflections are all easily stoppable, etc. If the goalie doesn't do that, well he sucks and get someone else in there.